The color leaped in Susan's cheeks.
"Yesterday I forbade you to see Sam Wright again. And already you disobey."
"I did not say I would not see him again," replied Susan.
"I thought you were an honest, obedient girl," cried Fanny, the high shrill notes in her voice rasping upon the sensitive, the now morbidly sensitive, Susan. "Instead—you slip away from the house and meet a young man—and permit him to take liberties with you."
Susan braced herself. "I did not go to the cemetery to meet him," she replied; and that new or, rather, newly revived tenacity was strong in her eyes, in the set of her sweet mouth. "He saw me on the way and followed. I did let him kiss me—once. But I had the right to."
"You have disgraced yourself—and us all."
"We are going to be married."
"I don't want to hear such foolish talk!" cried Mrs. Warham violently. "If you had any sense, you'd know better."
"He and I do not feel as you do about my mother," said the girl with quiet dignity.
Mrs. Warham shivered before this fling. "Who told you?" she demanded.